


Just Move This Way

by Krasimer



Series: Do Not Go Gentle [14]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, Altered Mental States, And loses an arm, F/F, Humanstuck, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Post-Game, Read the rest of the series, Time in Flux, Trust me it'll make a bit more sense, Vriska gets shot, majorly au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-16
Updated: 2015-04-16
Packaged: 2018-03-23 05:41:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3756532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krasimer/pseuds/Krasimer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For some reason, beyond what you think she might look like based on her voice, it also gives you an image of a dark haired girl with grey skin. There's an eyepatch and thin wire rimmed glasses and blue lips and it's all so terribly suited to the inhuman looking girl in your mind that you can't answer before she's pulling it off the table and walking away. </p><p>There's just something about her that makes you feel...</p><p>You can't put a name to it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Move This Way

If the door could open, that would be fabulous.

Your name is Teresa Marino, you're a brilliant lawyer if you do say so yourself, and your current client is fucking late. She's running so late, in fact, that you're considering calling Samuel up and talking at him for a while. He's probably in the middle of coding, something that you know always relaxed him when it'd been a hard day at school. 

It had helped that your dorm room at the school for the blind had been next to his.

Just as your hand is reaching for the phone, the doors creaks open, bringing in a gust of fresh air that smells like the oncoming snow that'll blanket the world soon. With a sigh, you angle your head towards the noise, trying to at least pretend that you can make eye contact with your client.

"Hey," is the first thing out of her mouth. There's the slide of the chair over the wooden floor, the quiet hum of the coffee shop a pleasant background noise. "I'm so sorry I'm late, there was an asshole with such a superiority complex, I just HAD to take him down a few pegs." You think for a moment that her hand must be in her hair, brushing it out of her face, but then everything you can hear of her stops. "Oh, hi." 

The second greeting lacks the almost physically forced air of nonchalance. "Hello." you greet shortly, trying to keep hold of your temper. "You're an hour late, Miss Sussner."

"Yeah," her voice is noticeably softer. "I really am sorry about that." 

You can feel her staring. "What, first time seeing a blind person?" your shoulders are tensed, and she lets out a little gasp that sounds almost shocked. "Or are you just this much of an idiot at all times?" You're willing to bet that she has blonde hair, the color you can only get from a bottle, with some non-natural color at the tips. Based on her voice, that's the image you get in your head. 

The table shifts as she leans in closer, her breath actually hitting your face now. It isn't unpleasant, it smells like cinnamon, but it's oddly familiar for someone you just met, especially when it's someone you're trying to prove the innocence of in a court case. 

"No," she rushes out when she realizes that the quiet between the two of your has gone on for too long. "I've seen blind people before. I used to be...Well, I shouldn't say friends, because we got along horribly after some things that happened, but we hung out sometimes." she pauses again, taps the table near your hand before taking it in her own. "You probably already know, but my name is Vanessa Sussner. Yours?"

"Teresa Marino," you reply curtly. Her skin is soft against yours, and it smells like she uses vanilla body lotion. "It's my job to keep your dumb ass out of jail, which is not going to be easy to do when it comes to the person accusing you."

"I just wanna say, before we go any further, that I didn't do anything." she clatters her nails against the thick stoneware mug that your drink was served to you in. "Do you want a refill? I'll pay."

For some reason, beyond what you think she might look like based on her voice, it also gives you an image of a dark haired girl with grey skin. There's an eye-patch and thin wire rimmed glasses and blue lips and it's all so terribly suited to the inhuman looking girl in your mind that you can't answer before she's pulling it off the table and walking away. 

There's just something about her that makes you feel...

You can't put a name to it.

 

~(|)~~(|)~~(|)~~(|)~

 

Your name, now that you can differentiate between lives, is Vanessa Sussner. 

You used to be Vriska Serket.

Your hands are clasped around a heavy mug in an attempt to keep yourself from shaking until you fall apart. Back at the table you just left is someone who looks more like Terezi than you look like Vriska. She's blind, she has a cane on the table next to her.

Her name is Teresa.

"Gog damn..." you mutter, pulling a five out of your wallet as you approach the counter. The man behind it gives you a look, hands seemingly glued to the register. "So, this was used to serve the blind lady over there, and she needs another one. Can we make that happen?"

Without breaking his professional attitude, he takes your money from you, handing back a few bills and some change, which you feel charitable enough to drop in the tip jar. 

You go to the pick up bar to wait for the new drink, arms crossed over your chest. Te- Teresa seems to be looking through some paperwork now, her thin fingers sliding over what looks like a blank page. It's probably brail, you realize just as the mug is nudged against your elbow. Your reflection stares back at you as you pass the baked goods case, and you nervously shove some of your hair behind your ear, nearly yanking one of your piercings out.

"It doesn't matter what you look like!" you hiss to yourself, taking a deep breath as you head back to the table. "Here you go, lawyer lady."

She still looks just as confused as she did when you took it from her and offered to get it refilled. "Thank you, Miss Sussner." the tone of her voice sets you on edge, and you sigh, tapping your fingers against the edge of the table. 

"You might as well call me by my first name, we're going to be working together for a while." you wince when her sightless eyes settle somewhere next to your ear. "Unless- Unless you give up on me, I would understand that. Seriously, I know I'm a fucking handful sometimes, and that I'm only out on bail because my mom decided to pay it instead of blowing me off like normal. I'm nineteen and stupid, I know this." you take a shaky breath, unsure of what to say next.

Teresa's hand comes across the table, resting next to yours for a minute. "I'm not giving up on you."

What. "Most people do, especially after talking to me for a little while. You have the option I don't, though, you can walk away." you feel your cheeks go bright red and it only gets worse when your hand is suddenly enveloped by hers, your chipped nail polish looking even shabbier next to her well maintained manicure. 

"Vanessa, I'm not going to walk away, and I'm not going to give up on you." she smiles, a crooked twist of her lips that reveals oddly sharp canine teeth. That, paired with the familiar red glasses above it, makes your heart pound in your chest.

In some ways, being human in the world that was gained after the game has made things easier for you. When you woke up in a human life and found out that the kid you sometimes babysat was Nepeta, you'd nearly had a heart attack. The girl was younger than you, all big eyes and knobby knees and so achingly familiar that you'd started crying right then and there. 

A few more minutes pass in silence between you and the woman that you know just has to be Terezi.

You speak eventually, voice almost too quiet to be heard. "Thank you."

"...You can thank me by showing up on time to every single meeting I ask of you from here on out." she replies, hands trembling as she sorts through papers. "The case is complicated, and any time that you show up late, it could get it all thrown out and started from scratch."

"Yes ma'am."

 

~(|)~~(|)~~(|)~~(|)~

 

She's late again.

When you say as much to Samuel, he sighs, a hiss of static in your ear with an exaggerated edge to it. "Tho? The'th a delinquent, why doeth it matter tho much?"

Before you can answer him, a frown on your face as you consider it, you can hear a commotion at the door to the coffee shop. "Hold on, Sam-I-Am." you snicker as the nickname makes him grumble some words he'd never say in front of his mother. "There's apparently a fight going on."

You drag all of your attention back into the world around you, your phone in your hand, you catch the middle of a sentence that makes your blood run cold. 

"-ease! I need to be in there, it's not safe out here and she's my lawyer!"

Before the barista can oust her entirely, you stand, your cane unfolding almost like another limb, and you tap your way over to the door. The path is long since memorized, and you're willing to travel it even if it hadn't been. "Miss Sussner?"

"Oh," the employee makes a derisive sound. "You know her?"

You take a deep breath through your nose. "She's my client. Please, tell me why you're barring her entrance when she's aware of me being a lawyer. If it really is as unsafe out there for her as she's saying, then you're endangering the life of my client and you're really close to pissing me off."

Your phone chuckles, Samuel's raspy hiss of laughter echoing in the small space. 

Grudgingly, the barista lets Vanessa in, and she immediately heels at your side. The warmth of her body radiates into your arm, even though the button down shirt you chose to wear today. "Thank you." she whispers, and you take a second to reflect on how that seems to be her favorite phrase when it comes to you.

"Now," you clear your throat, addressing the barista. "You're going to so kindly put my drink in a to go cup, and we're going to leave." you grin, feeling a wave of anger rushing through you again. In the two weeks you've known her, Vanessa Sussner has stuck to her word and arrived on time. She has been brash and a little rude, and right now she's clinging to your side like she's scared for the first time ever. "Look out for my reviews in the future, they might be very important."

With that settled, you try to get her to sit down at the table. 

"No offense, Teresa, but I really don't wanna sit down right now." her voice even sounds scared, like she's tensing up in preparation to run. "I'll tell you why later, right now...Just trust me, I don't wanna sit down."

"Teresa?" your phone calls out to you, and you apologize to her before responding. "Hey Samuel, gonna have to call you back. My client showed and the barista was awfully rude, so we're relocating. You gonna be okay?" you smile when he laughs, telling you to fuck off already. 

"Seriously," he mutters once he finishes laughing. "Go make sure that 'Miss Vanessa' isn't damaged. Or is it too late for that?"

Instead of answering, you hang up on him, holding your hand out for Vanessa's arm. "Here, we're going to catch a cab and you can actually see them when they're coming." you smile again when she loops her arm through yours, curling around you to grab something. "You alright?"

"Yeah, your coffee decided to come with us, remember?" she sounds only faintly like herself, all her bravado stripped away. "Where are we going?"

"I was thinking my apartment." you tell her once you're outside, arm still looped with hers, your hand settled in the crook of her elbow. There's something sticky on her sleeve, and the feel of it makes you frown. "Unless you had somewhere else you needed to be?"

She's shaking now, her entire body trembling against your side. "Teresa, can we go to the hospital?" Even her voice is shaking, and with that question hanging in the air between you, you understand what the stickiness is. You go still, your fingers travelling up her arm until they find what you're searching for: On her bicep, a gritty line of partially burned flesh and ripped fabric of her jacket. She whimpers when the tips of your fingers pass over the probably blood soaked skin, catching on some that's trying to dry. 

"Yes." you answer curtly, pulling your phone out of your bag again. "And we're not catching a fucking cab."

Your phone beeps, prompting you to tell it what to do, and you tell it to call a friend of yours, someone that you know will give you a ride to the hospital, no questions asked. "Vanessa, what are we near, is there somewhere we can go inside for a little while and keep out of sight?"

"There's a bar, but I'm not-" she cuts off, having turned to look and pulled the wound open a little more. Your fingers are going to be soaked in blood by the time you get anywhere, and you clench your grip a little tighter on her. 

"Don't jerk around." you tell her. "If we go into a bar, you're with me and you're bleeding. You might not be old enough to be in one legally, but you need first aid and a place to hide until you're safe. Bars tend to let you do that, especially if you ask that bartender and inform them of what's happening." she whimpers again, blood flowing freely down her arm once more. "Are you left handed?"

"Yeah." she manages after a few seconds of shaking on her part. "That's why this hurts so much, it's my left shoulder and all the muscles are just sort of-" she cuts herself off with a soft cry, leaning closer to you when you tug gently. 

"You're all tensed up and probably in shock," you tell her, motioning towards what you hope is the bar. "You were shot, it makes sense."

She shifts around, touching your shoulder as she switches sides. "I don't think it went in?" she offers vaguely.

You nod, answering when the other end of the call finally picks up. "Hey, Harris, I need a favor. I'm by that coffee shop, the one I always go to, and I have a client with me, and we need to get to the hospital. You up for it?"

"Oh, dear." he mutters, and you can tell that his eyes are probably wider than normal. "I shall, of course, be willing to drive you to the hospital. How severe is the injury?"

"She got shot, you figure it out. She says she thinks it didn't go in, just hurts like hell and she's crying a little." you smile as you hear him getting ready, the jingle of keys obvious in the lack of other noises. "You got your boytoy with you?"

"He is not my boytoy," Harris responds frostily. "He is my boyfriend, and we have been dating for three years."

Vanessa stops moving, probably at the door to the bar now, her hand laced in your other one. 

"Neat, good to know. We're in the bar next door to the coffee place, they decided to come down with a sudden case of 'asshole staff' and I might be destroying them in the future." you gesture for Vanessa to go in first and she holds the door for you, plastering herself to your side once you're both in. "See you soon?"

"Yes, I endeavor to be there in a few minutes." he doesn't bother saying goodbye, just leaves you listening to a dial tone.

As you settle in at the bar, within sight of the bar tender and having explained the situation to her and gotten Vanessa a bottle of water to try and re-hydrate her a little, she asks quietly, "Was that Harris Carlyle?"

Your coffee is somewhat cold now, and you probably have left bloody fingerprints all over it, but you sip at it anyways. "Yeah, do you know him?"

"I babysit his little brother's best friend. She's thirteen and still sometimes gets into more trouble than she should." Vanessa still sounds like she's on the verge of crying, but the connection between your lives is something you can make her focus on. 

"Oh, so you're the one that keeps my sister's girlfriend's sister in line." you grin as you hear her trying to process that entire sentence.

"...Are you big sister Tanya?" she pauses, then negates that on her own. "No, wait. Big sister Tanya is your sister, isn't it?" Vanessa giggles as she thinks about that. "So your sister is dating the person who usually hires me." she pauses again, thinking. "We've known each other for a while, you've been hauling your ass trying to defend me, but we've never really talked about our lives."

You reach out and pat her back gently, trying not to jostle her injured arm. "I'm big sister Reesa, because Nessa sometimes wants someone around whose name sounds a bit like hers."

Before Vanessa can say anything to that, someone talks over her. From the smell that comes wafting off of him, he must be drunker than all hell, and your client tenses up under your hand. "Hey babydoll, wanna come back to my place?" Vanessa shakes her head, you can feel the movement, but he apparently doesn't take her answer as final, because she almost winds up in your lap while trying to edge away from him. 

You pull your cane into your hands, starting to unfold it to beat the lout soundly about the head. "She's nineteen, and I am technically in charge of her. Back away now, before you get hurt or in trouble."

"Wait, what?" the man guffaws, a loud sound that wouldn't have been out of place in a howler monkey mating session. "She's in here, ain't she? She's gotta be older than that."

"I assure you, she's not." you let the end of your cane tap against the ground.

He goes quiet, like he's gone away, but you know better. Drunken assholes don't back down unless given really good reason to, especially when they're male. You wait, your other hand still on Vanessa's back, trying to keep her calm. "Van-"

"Well I don't mind damaged goods!" he crows, his thick meaty hand coming down with a loud smack against your ass.

The entire bar goes silent as you lay him out on the floor, barely breathing harder than normal. "Next time you lay a hand on a woman, I hope you know better than to slap her ass without her permission, or I will hunt you the fuck down and take it from you." you inform him, voice even. He tries to get up, but you brace a foot on his stomach, pressing him back down. "Now, we're just going to sit here until it's time for me to go, because you don't seem to know when to back off."

Behind you, the bartender laughs. "Well, gosh, looks like damaged goods are still better than you deserve, sir. When she leaves, I'm going to have to ask you to go as well, I'm sure that there's someone who wants you back home, even if you can't get a fuck to save your life."

You turn your head towards Vanessa, smiling reassuringly, even if you can't see her face. "So, you feeling any better yet?"

There's a warning snicker and then the girl bursts out laughing.

 

~(|)~~(|)~~(|)~~(|)~

 

Teresa, you've decided, is entirely awesome.

Even if you didn't suspect her of being Terezi, she's wonderful. There's humor, there's the fact that she can flatten a guy who looks like he outweighs her by a couple hundred pounds, and there's the fact that every time you feel like you're going to fall apart tonight, she puts her hand on your back or shoulder like she knows without you saying.

She's probably just going off of the fact that you're still sort of sobbing every few minutes, the angry pain of a bullet wound in your arm making you emotional.

As such, it actually sort of annoys you to see Harris walk into the bar. You know him, you've met him before because he and Melisa know each other, so when he walks closer and sees you, you wave at him.

"Vanessa, why are you in a bar? You're still a few years too young for this sort of life." he chides once he's within scolding range. Without even looking down, he steps around Teresa's captive and sighs. "I was called about- Oh." he pulls your arm up gently so that he can take a look at it. "Oh, hell." when he meets your eyes, you try to smile, pulling it back, only for another flare of pain to hit and cause you to double over. "Teresa?"

She nods slowly, retracting her foot from where it migrated to the man's chest. "Shall we?"

Harris holds out his arm for her to take, waiting for her to stand before he moves towards you. "Vanessa, do you want to be carried? Only time I'll ask, now that you're an adult."

There's waves of panic pushing at the back of your throat and everything feels light and bubbly in a way that makes your eyes want to roll back in your head. You can't help it, you giggle. "I'm not sure I trust my feet right now." you mutter, nodding slowly. Like when you were little, the memories in your head that aren't technically yours tell you, he leans down and picks you up. Your legs get settled around his waist, your undamaged arm around his neck and his arms clasped together under your butt.

Even if you knew who he might have been, you don't know if he remembers.

That's the last thought you have before everything goes black, your head slipping into blissful silence. 

 

You wake up to a repetitive beeping sound, a mechanical heartbeat that tells you you're still alive.

Everything is fuzzy, your tongue feels like it's made of freshly picked cotton, and the ceiling and room are a blinding white color. The only color you can see is the blond and blue of your hair on the pillow next to you when your eyes happen to roll that way.

There's a sound, almost like canon fire with how it booms, and then the blackness is swallowing you again, your eyelids like lead as you try to turn over. 

It sounds like someone's calling your name, but they're saying it wrong because you're Vriska, and this isn't right at all. You try to say something back, but the words choke you and you start coughing, gasping for air and clawing at your throat. 

Hands catch yours, holding them still. The voice is screaming, like a little girl alone in a dark room full of everything she's afraid of.

You don't know what else happens after that.

 

You actually manage to wake up again.

The beeping of the machine is a comfort, it reminds you that you're still alive, heart pounding ever onwards. Next to the bed is Teresa, curled up in the chair that's normally where a family member would be. Your left arm feels odd, but you ignore it as you look around the room. Your clothes are in a bag on the floor, and there's a fresh set of hospital clothes on the table next to the bed. 

As it is, you're dressed in a paper thin robe that'll show your ass the moment you so much as think about moving. 

"Hello." someone says, and you turn your head towards the door. Harris is standing there, his usually darker skin a pale color, like he's been awake and terrified for a while. "Are you awake then? Or is this another bad patch?" his blue eyes are wide and worried, and there's a couple of bottles of water in his arm, boxes of what smell like food in the other.

"I think I'm awake." you manage to answer, trying to work up enough saliva to speak. It hurts, but you manage it. "Why's my arm feeling all weird?"

Harris doesn't answer, comes instead into the room and sets the food on the side table. He avoids meeting your eyes when your roll your head to look at him. After four attempts to shift the water bottles and food around in a way that will distract you, he sighs and meets your gaze. "Your arm feels weird because it is no longer there." he whispers it, like that's going to make it any better.

"...What?" you feel the weight of the word as it drops from your mouth, a boulder in a lake that has always been doomed to drown. 

He helps you sit up, adjusting the bed so that you're on a more even level with him. "When you said that you thought the bullet hadn't gone in, you were wrong. There were also two of them, and you could have died in that bar if you hadn't gone unconscious when you did." he opens one of the bottles and puts it to your mouth. "You need water, and you're finally awake enough that your doctor says you can have it."

The two of you sit there, and you pull away from the lip of the bottle when you feel too full of liquid. "So I'm going to have to learn how to write right with the wrong hand?" you ask him, trying to be funny.

The joke falls so flat that it might be comparable to your chest in ninth grade.

"You said something when you where seizing up." Harris says instead of responding to it. Good, bad jokes should be ignored, even when you're the one making them. "You said this word that didn't sound like a word, much less a name, but you kept insisting that it was yours."

Oh.

Oh shit.

Your hand comes up to cover your face, your now useless stump of an arm jerking roughly in an attempt to move with it. "Shit..." you mutter. 

"There's no need to panic." he tells you, screwing the cap back onto your bottle before setting it within reach. "Equius is named Eachann in this world, and I used to be named Horuss." he smiles at you when you look at him again, his blue eyes actually touched by this one. The Harris Carlyle you're used to doesn't often smile, and it's even more of a rarity to see him meaning it. "I believe that Ananda is your sister now, yes? Used to be Aranea?"

"Yeah." you say shakily, leaning into his hand when he puts it on your cheek, trying to calm you down. He found out that it worked when you were little, twelve years younger than your sister and often forced into his care when she couldn't watch you. 

Like hell your mother would have expended the effort to watch over her youngest.

"Would you like me to call her?" he offers, still letting you press against his hand like it's a fucking lifeline in the middle of a stormy ocean. "I have her number in my phone, it's really all very simple. One call and she comes running to check on her baby sister, because she does that." 

Your upper lip pulls back as you think about it. "And she'll bring like fifty cupcakes and fourty goddamned muffins and a cake or two." 

"Do you not want her here?" he asks, an eyebrow raised. "Unless you ask for her, I will not call her."

"Thought that what I said made it perfectly clear," you shake your head, raising your own eyebrow. "I wanna be psuedo force fed sugary junk until it sets in that her little sister lost an arm and she starts sobbing like I'm gonna die." you cackle when he chokes on a laugh. 

"Then I presume you do not want solid food for the first time in a week?" he asks, gesturing at the take out boxes. "I asked your doctor what you could eat and he said that you had very few restrictions."

"Oh fuck, get it in my mouth." you say before you can even think about it, wincing when you remember who you're talking to. 

"Don't worry," he saves you from your own awkwardness, shuffling the boxes around again until he finds one that makes him smile gently. "I remember what you're like when you're hungry. Every phrase is awkward and off the mark until you've had enough food that you remember your manners." 

Behind him, Teresa is still asleep. "Do you know anything about her?" you ask while he settles a napkin in your lap. He hesitates, then hands you a fork and drapes another napkin over your chest. 

"What do you mean?" he asks, his normally stern voice softened by concern. The box is finally opened to reveal macaroni and cheese, a softer meal than you would like but you haven't eaten for - Holy hell, he said a week. You dig in the moment he lets you, chewing as you think of how to answer.

You swallow, clearing your mouth before speaking to him. "I mean, I think she used to be a troll too. If I'm right, then she used to be named Terezi." the blank look on his face makes you sigh, and you gesture at her. "Terezi Pyrope."

"Oh!" he brightens up, no longer puzzling over who you might mean. "Latula's ilk. Why is it that you only think she might be? Is there reason for your doubt?"

"She doesn't seem to remember." you say, then shove an entirely weighed down fork full of noodle and cheese into your mouth. As he nods, you chew your way through it, looking down at the stump where your arm used to be. When you swallow and clear your mouth again, you sigh. "This is the second gogdamned time I've lost this fucking thing." When he gives you a confused look, you grin. "I lost it as a troll, too. I got it back when I God Tiered, but I lost it before that and it was actually kind of something stupid. I lost it because someone decided to pay me back for what I did."

Harris nods, then leans back in the other chair and pulls a box into his lap. "I brought food for all three of us, in the off chance that she was still awake when I returned."

"Hm?" you make the sound around the cheek-stuffing bite you took. 

"She was awake for nearly the entire week that you were unconscious. She was worried about you." he looks back at her, her hands folded up and pillowed under her head. All in all, she looks a bit wrecked, like she was when you first blinded her back as a troll. 

The realization that you've caused that twice hits you and you nearly throw up what little of your food that you've eaten. "Fuck," you mutter once you can talk again.

"You say she doesn't remember, but I think she might, somewhere deep down." he twirls his fork in the salad he's working on eating. If you had more of a will to eat cold veggies, you might have attempted Mount Salad, because it is the salad version of Mount Everest.

...You are so glad that no one can see into your thoughts.

"Can you call my sister when you finish eating?" you ask him quietly. Despite the life you lived as a troll, this is the man you've been conditioned to treat as a mixture of older brother and father figure. Human memories overtake everything else, but in a way it makes sense, even with part of your brain still insisting that he should be called a lusus.

Harris closes his container, placing it back on the table and setting the fork on top of it. "I can do it now." he assures you, leaning forward to kiss your forehead, then walking out of the room as he pulls out his phone.

Time passes in a weird blurred out haze.

You don't remember eating the rest of your food, but you must have because the container is empty and you feel full. The hands on the clock tick away the seconds and it feels like an eternity before Ananda arrives. As you predicted, there's a wicker basket sitting on her hip when she jogs through the door, her cat's eye glasses framing her rounded cheeks and bright blue eyes that match yours.

"Vanessa!" she cries, dropping the basket on your knees and dragging you into almost face first contact with her chest. 

"'Nanda!" you squeak before she manages to shove your entire face into her cleavage. The dress she's wearing is beautiful and fifties inspired and probably made for her by her girlfriend. It doesn't need greasy little sister down the front of it, especially when your last shower was over a week ago, before you got shot. "'Nanda, boobs!"

She pulls back, planting her ass on the section of bed next to your thigh. "How-" she chokes on the words, gesturing vaguely at your left shoulder. Your family has never been one for dancing around something. "How did this happen? What sick bastard shot my baby sister?"

"I-" you cut yourself off, the words hitting you in a way that you haven't had time to process yet. "I don't..." you can feel the tears building in your eyes and you let her drag your head down onto her shoulder, her fingers combing through your hair and scratching at your scalp occasionally. You can't help it, because between the fingers and the cuddling and the basket of baked goods sitting in your lap, you feel safer than you have for a long time.

You start crying.

You start crying and you don't stop until you start hiccuping miserably, wiping ineffectually at your eyes with the only hand you have left.

Oh god, you lost your arm.

It doesn't matter that it's happened before, you lived in a society that expected destruction from supposed friends back then. But now, you've lost an arm to someone who scares you far more than you could ever hope to even explain.

Big sisters are amazing sometimes, you think as Ananda rearranges and settles you almost in her lap, they give the best hugs and are only sometimes awful people.

 

~(|)~~(|)~~(|)~~(|)~

 

You wake up to hear crying, and for a moment you don't understand why.

When you fumble around for your cane, someone hands it to you instead, a soft voice telling you to remain seated. If you actually focus, it sounds like Harris. His calm tones dig into your still half asleep mind more than anything else could possibly hope to. After you calm down a little, he hands you a box of food and a bottle of water, with a promise of a muffin once you're done.

Your neck hurts.

"Teresa?" That's not Vanessa and it isn't Harris.

Too busy eating, you tilt your head up, indicating that you're listening. There's a chuckle and then there's a soft hand on your shoulder. "Hello, I'm Ananda Sussner. You're the lawyer who's been attempting to get my little sister off the burglary charges?"

"Hm-mn." you confirm, then swallow and take a swig of water. "Sorry, yes."

"I've also heard that you've spent as much time here as she has." Ananda has a good voice, but you prefer Vanessa's. 

Wait, shit. 

"I've spent more time one couches and chairs and waiting rooms than she has, but I've stayed here as long as she's been here." you clear your throat, searching for any possible excuse for it. "She's my client, I had to make sure she survived to give a police report. I actually have a theory as to what happened to cause this, but that can be discussed once she has been discharged."

"I just wanted to thank you," she sounds like she's near tears. Why is it that you can't figure out what to say right now? There's a need for comforting words, there are crying people.

Fuck, you need coffee.

"For what?"

You can practically hear her damn smile. She probably has a really sweet smile, but you can tell that there's also a layer of horrendous bitch underneath the sugar and sweetness of her. Good. Sugar-sweet doesn't tend to survive in this world. "You made sure that my sister survived, and you got her to a hospital, and you've worked your ass off to make sure she stays out of jail. You've done so much to keep her safe, including dropping a pig to the ground when he tried to take her home with him."

"...Did she leave out the part where I took her into a bar to keep her safe instead of staying in the coffee shop she found me in?" you feel a yawn coming on, and then someone is slipping a Styrofoam cup of something hot and enticing smelling into your hand. 

Sweet Gods above, someone is your new savior because it is coffee.

"She brought that up," Ananda tells you, and you can feel your blood running a little cold at the tone in her voice. "But she mentioned that it was because she didn't feel comfortable staying there."

"So are we ever going to tell her that I'm here?" someone says from your right. You grin, and you know that if you could see her, she'd look exactly like you right now. No wonder the coffee smells good, it's not hospital coffee. Nothing as good as the brew in your possession could come from the sad little heated carafes down in the cafeteria. "It seems cruel to not tell the blind lady things." she continues, her hand plopping down on the top of your head. 

"Hey Tanya." you greet her, leaning your head back so that her palm is on your nose. 

There's suddenly another chair next to you, her knee jostling against yours. She's only a year older than you but you feel like you're so much younger when she curls your legs across her lap and taps both of your knees. "Heyya dork, how're you doing?"

You heave a sigh, making sure to drag it out as long as possible. 

"Gotcha." she gives you a little friction burn on your calf through the pants you've been wearing for too long now. Affection in your family is rough and tumble, neither your sister or your mother is exactly soft. Everyone is sharp edges and rough corners, bony elbows wrapped haphazardly around shoulders in an attempt to calm.

You followed in your mother's footsteps and became a lawyer, even after the accident that left your father dead and you blind, and you think that might be the most loving she had ever been towards either of her spawn.

"You will be my most favorite person in all the world if you bring me new clothes." you promise Tanya, hands clasped together over the cup of coffee. 

"There's already a bag under the chair you're sitting in," Tanya promises, patting your knees again. "You looked like a mess when Harris took a picture and texted Meuls. She sent me with coffee and clothes, and a threat to make sure that you were alright or else."

"Have I told you lately how much I adore your girlfriend?" you shoot back, burying your nose in the cup.

Tanya lowers her voice and leans in closer, you can feel it. "Have I told you lately how crazy you are? Last time you spent any sort of time in a hospital was when you and dad were checked in and he didn't check out. I thought you hated them." she cups a hand against your cheek and sighs. "And to find you with Meul's favorite babysitter, whose big sister happens to be Ananda Sussner...Damn, kid, you aim high."

Your cheeks are suspiciously warm. 

God damnit.

"Sssh." you hiss at her, a finger to your lips. "We'll talk about that later."  
If you could see, you know you'd see her giving you a smug, all knowing smile. You've never once been able to hide anything from her.

Fuck.

 

~(|)~~(|)~~(|)~~(|)~

 

"I," you announce to the room in general. "Am so tired of being in a fucking hospital bed."

Ananda, the traitor, only laughs at you and pulls your blanket back up to your waist, her blue manicured nails shimmering in the unnecessarily bright lights. Teresa left the room to get changed into clean clothes, her own sister helping her find the bathroom. If you hadn't been the messier of two sisters with Ananda being prim and proper and clean at all times, you would have thought that you couldn't find any two siblings more different than Tanya and Teresa.

Teresa, clean cut looking with button down shirts and slacks, versus Tanya, with her skate shoes and her baggy cargo shorts and her doubled shirts...

Anyways.

You decide to stop thinking about Teresa and her clothes and the possibly lack of them in a small room that's just down the hall.

"Harris tells me that you remember." Ananda brings your attention back to her and when- Wait, when did she start remembering too? That seems deeply unfair, and if you had enough energy for it, you'd drag a whine out and roll your eyes. The entire thought of that right now seems exhausting though. "Mind telling me how long it has been?"

"...Well..." you shrug, playing with the edge of the blanket, rolling it between the first finger and thumb of your remaining hand. "I've only had my memories for a year, I think, haven't been keeping track of how long it's been."

A shiver rolls down your spine as you hear boots clacking on the tile floor outside your room.

"Oh dear." Ananda mutters, looking towards the door. Still looking away, she takes your hand in hers, clasping it tightly, a reassuring grip in the face of who is about to walk through the door. Never, in your entire two lives of memories, have you ever run into someone who walks the same way as Adradrianna Sussner. There's something terrifying about it, even when she's smiling.

Especially when she's smiling.

Usually, your mother smiling means that someone is either about to die or is going to wish they had.

The game spat you out as a teenage girl named Vanessa. It spat Aranea out as an adult woman named Ananda. Unlike the two of you, from what you can tell, it combined your lusus and your ancestor to make your mother. Considering the dispositions of both, you're not sure it was entirely a wise decision on the game's part.

You have to wonder if that's the case for the rest of the two groups of trolls.

The door to your room, in the time that it took you to think that, has opened and admitted the fear causing woman herself. She's standing just inside, her arms crossed over her chest, and staring the both of you down. 

It's like staring into a mirror image.

She has your eyes, your face, your everything, but her left eye is blind. Her left arm has a limited range of movement due to an incident of some kind when she was younger. 

The look on her face is one of displeasure, her lips pulled down in a twist of anger.

"Give me a name, baby girl, and I will make them disappear." 

She might not have been the most attentive of mothers, but she is the most terrifying. Sometimes it works out in your favor. Her thigh high red leather boots clack against the floor as she comes closer, and she pauses as Aranea pulls out a chair for her to sit in. She reaches for your cheek with her right hand, her thumb stroking across your cheekbone as she continues to frown.

"Mom..." you begin slowly, meeting her eyes cautiously. 

Her frown disappears as she searches your face, her other hand coming to rest on the other side of your face. "Oh, Vriska..." she whispers, eyebrows furrowed. "Tiny little Vriska." she turns to your sister, one of her hands slipping off of you to rest on her cheek as well. "Tiny little Aranea." she leans forward, drawing you both to her chest as she growls something under her breath. "I'm so glad that the two of you finally both remember and know that the other remembers."

The wild mass of hair, and her hair looks so much more like yours than Aranea's tamed almost-curls, falls in a curtain around the three of you.

"My little girls." she whispers, hands clutching your shoulder so tightly that it hurts. There's a familiarity in the way she says it, but you've never heard her say anything in that tone before. She sounds almost sad, and that makes you nervous. "My tiny little girls, you've gone through so much and I just wish I could have-" she cuts off, presses a forceful kiss to your forehead, then to Aranea's.

"Hm-hm." someone clears their throat, a polite sound in the quiet that seems to have settled in the room. 

Your mother pulls back from the two of you, a grin on her face as she looks back towards the door of the hospital room. There's a tall woman there, Middle Eastern if you had to guess from the color of her skin. 

"Oh, hello!" Ananda calls out, her eyes wide as she looks at the woman. "Miss Nassar, is everything alright?"

"Dear, how many times must I tell you?" she speaks with a soft gracefulness and you know right then who this is. "You may call me Demetria. You are, after all, dating my eldest daughter. As for your question, everything is fine." she smiles at your sister, motherly in a way your own birth parent will never be.

Oh fuck.

That's Kanaya-as-a-human's mother. You can feel your eyes trying to pop out of your head. Scratch that, it's not just Kanaya's mother, that's the mother of what is possibly your future sister in law. 

"Are you alright, dear?" Demetria Nassar is staring you down, her head tilted to one side and her brilliantly green eyes and wide in concern. "I have heard a little of what has happened to you lately, and I was informed that you remembered as well." she takes a step towards you and smiles, gesturing to your mom.

Oh.

You can feel the burn of tears in the back of your eyes as you give what you hope is a decent smile. When she's close enough, you hold out your hand and watch as she takes it. With a gentle shake, she performs an odd little half-bow over your clasped hands and Aranea giggles. "It's n-nice to meet you." you manage to stutter out. It's not fear so much as you know who this is.

If your own mother is a combination of lusus and ancestor, then it's plausible that it's the same for all of the parents.

Fuck.

"We have met once before," she lifts your chin up so that she can meet your eyes. When did you drop your head to focus on your goddamn knees? "Kanaya was a senior when you were a freshmen in high school."

You nod, only breathing when Aranea prods your side. 

"Here," Demetria pulls the other chair towards your bed, sitting down in it in a way that makes the cheap plastic almost look like a throne. She is regal in a way the Empress never was, all grace and elegance and soft smiles and disarming glances. If you had it in you to fall in love with someone so much older than you, you might actually fall in love with her.

If you pay attention to the looks your mother is giving her, you think she might have that covered.

"That's better," she sighs, leaning back in the chair. "No more looming over you."

"When your lawyer lady gets back in the room," your mother grins. "I wanna talk to her again." she watches you closely, her only good eye narrowing in glee when you pick up on something in her words.

You blink at her and you know it looks kind of stupid, but you really can't help it. "Mom, what do you mean 'again'? Why is there an 'Again'?" 

She doesn't answer.

"Mom." you say warningly. 

She chuckles, scratches idly at her jaw. "I talked to her a few days ago, when you were still out of it. With her help and her advice, based on what she knew of what happened before, the police were able to track down the singular security camera that had footage of you getting shot. What I know of it, it shows you in a very positive light." she curls her right hand into a loose fist and nudges it under your chin. "Chin up, spiderbite." she grins. "You're not going to go to jail that easily."

"Of course she's not." Demetria agrees, her hands folded neatly in her lap. "She has a determined lawyer who has an even more determined mother. Including the two of us, that's three mothers who want nothing more than to see you free and clear." 

There is something almost evil about her grin, and you can tell that this is a pause, not her being done talking. "And? The smile on your face is doing a lot of talking."

"We also have the help of someone who didn't give us much help last time." she admits, her shoulders relaxing minutely. "He works as a police officer and he runs a small church. If you know the ancestors as well as Adradrianna tells me you do, then I am confident that you know who it is that I'm talking about."

Wait.

Wait a minute.

Religion and enforcement of rules.

Fuck.

Wait.

Abort abort abort.

Abort mission.

You can feel your mind come crashing to a halt as the realization hits, a tsunami in a beach-front town. Oh hell and fuck and every expletive you should never say in front of a teacher. "I-" nope, no, can't even say it out loud yet. You take a deep breath, veer away from the thought of clawing out your eyes. Another deep breath ensures your ability to talk, but you're still not sure you want to. "The Grand Highblood?"

"Yes." Demetria confirms it. 

"Does that mean that Gamzee and-" you stop right there because you need to not feel guilty for that shit right now. You were a higher blood caste than him, he deserved it, and you had the right to do it long before you did. 

Your mom raises an eyebrow at you. "Gamzee and who? I didn't think you knew about Kurloz."

"I sort of did, but only in a vague 'This is a troll in the dream bubbles' sort of way." you gesture at your sister. "Mostly because of her. I'm not talking about Kurloz." you scratch at the back of your head. "I'm talking about someone I kind of...Did something really bad to."

You had the right.

With a sigh, you close your eyes. "His name was Tavros, back then. Going from people you two know," you pause, looking at Ananda. "You three, I should say...Aranea knew him as Rufioh and you two would have known him as the Summoner." you swallow, mouth going dry as all three of them look at you. "Tavros was the Summoner's descendant. I killed him."

With that knowledge out in the air, you mom looks half proud and half angry, the combination of facial expressions almost enough to make you laugh.

"How exactly did you die?" Aranea frowns. "You never did tell me."

Your face itches, and you don't know why. "I died because Terezi stabbed me in the back after finding corpses and clues that it was my fault." you shrug with one shoulder, not meeting anyone's eyes. "I killed Tavros, and then Gamzee kind of framed me for the deaths that he caused."

"Gamzee is referring to the youngest Makara, yes?" Demetria waits for you to answer, then breathes out slowly. "You angered the Grand Highblood's descendent."

"In kind of a major fucking way," you nod, biting your bottom lip. "He framed me for the murders of a couple of our other friends. I'm also pretty sure he was setting his sights on Tavros in his flushed quadrant?" you feel the guilt climbing in your chest, disgust coating your tongue and making the words harder to say. "I felt kind of jealous and angry because Tavros wouldn't consider me as a Kismesis sort of thing with a vacillation into Flushed."

Aranea looks vaguely disappointed in you.

"Let me get this straight," aw fuck, your mom sounds disappointed in you. "You killed the flushcrush of the Grand Highblood's descendant and expected everything to go perfectly afterwards?"

"I wasn't really sure what I was thinking." you admit. "Translated into human age, I was something like fourteen when this all happened. Old enough to know I shouldn't, young and stupid enough to do it anyways." Aranea leans closer, tries to put her hand on your shoulder, and for the first time in a long time, you pull away from her before she can. You pull your knees to your chest, a pang of sadness striking in your heart. "I guess I've always just been a fucking idiot."

Demetria shakes her head, moves to the side of your bed and switches spots with Aranea. With a soft hum, she sits down next to you, draws your head against her chest and strokes your hair. "You are not an idiot." she whispers, her perfume tugging at the edges of your senses. It smells like vanilla and lilies, something soft and familiar. "I fought against the blood caste, as did my adopted son, but I know there are personality quirks that belong to each one. You are no more an idiot than your mother and sister, even if you don't seem like them."

"They were more powerful than me, and neither one of them died because of their own plans screwing them over and a friend stabbing them in the back." you hiss.

"Damara was possessed by a God of the Void," Aranea interjects, a smile on her round face. "And she blew every last one of us up because I couldn't find a better way to escape from him. My plans literally exploded in my face."

"Dualscar told the Highbloods where I was," your mother adds in, a smirk on her face as she presses her chin into her palm. "He sent Neophyte Redglare after me, and even though I survived that, I lost my arm and my vision eightfold. He was my Kismesis at the time, and that broke it off completely, no chance of it ever being revived. My plan was to wait for the Summoner's arrival, then get him to help me ensnare Redglare's dragon as my own pet."

"Every last Serket has died due to betrayal and dead end plans." Aranea finishes, crossing her arms across her front as she leans back in the chair. "Trust me, you aren't stupid at all. If you are, the entire bloodline is."

You feel the grin stretching across your face as you look between the two of them, a dry laugh in your throat. "That almost doesn't make me feel better."

"It probably shouldn't," your mom grins back at you, hooking her fingers together with Demetria's. "Every last one of us died because we did the wrong things in the end. I would like to not see this repeated now that we're in the human lives we currently lead."

 

~(|)~~(|)~~(|)~~(|)~

 

The bathroom your sister took you to is incredibly small, room enough for a wheelchair to move around in but not much more.  
And she chose to come in with you.

"Seriously, Tanya, you didn't need to come in with me." is the first thing out of your mouth when it's just the two of you and the bathroom door is locked and closed. You still strip your shirt off, wincing at the feeling of it peeling off of your skin. The first thing you're going to do when you get the fuck out of this hospital is take a scaldingly hot shower.

Maybe the red-hot heat will cheer you up some, you always did like red.

"I didn't, no, but I wanted to." she quips back, and you can hear her putting her butt on the sink, sitting on the edge of it. You can hear the swish of air as she swings her legs, her shoe heels tapping against the edge of whatever sort of counter this bathroom has. The last time you saw her with your own eyes, she favored Vans, bright red and turquoise striped ones that made your head hurt from how bright they were. "I wanted to talk to you a bit, away from your bad girl of a client."

"She didn't do the crime she's being accused of." you barely manage to stop yourself from snapping at her. It's been a while since the two of you had a fight, maybe you're due for one. "She's done some bad things, but she's not guilty of this particular thing."

"I know." Tanya's voice is softer than you've heard it since you were stuck in a hospital for two months. "I wasn't talking about that when I called her a bad girl. It's the whole 'Danny and Sandy' sort of thing between you. I hate to say it, little sis, but you're totally Sandy." You can hear the grin on her face, the toes of her shoes tapping together. "When you get back into her room, I'm gonna get everyone else out of there, and you need to talk to her."

You frown. "Why do I need to talk to her?"

"..." she breathes heavily for a second, either out of frustration or sorrow, you can't tell. "You remember the dreams you used to have, right? They got worse when you lost your eyes and you would wake up screaming, mom and I didn't know what to do."

"I remember." you swallow against the lump in your throat, trying to push back the wave of panic that comes with not being able to breathe. 

There's a few tapping sounds, and then her hand is on your shoulder. For the first time since you were a little kid, she kisses your forehead. "Vanessa knows some stuff about it. Trust me, you might have a few reservations about it, but you need to talk to her. She'll know more about what it's like than anyone else you could talk to."

With a sigh, you realize that you're still holding your dirty shirt, the clean one not yet on your body. "It's been fifteen years since the accident," you remind her. "Why do I need to drag things up from the past when they've been peaceful for over a decade?"

"Because you stay up late, talking to Samuel when you can't sleep." 

That little shit is getting a lesson in privacy when you see him next. You might smack him with your cane a couple of times, possibly trip him up once or twice. 

"Don't make that face, I asked him to tell me or his brother when you do that. I couldn't figure out any other way to make sure that you were alright." she nudges her nose against your forehead again. "I never ask him what you two talk about, I just asked him to tell me when you're up till three in the morning, fighting off the nightmares that I know you still have."

"I-"

"Just because you're twenty-seven now, it doesn't mean I can't worry about you!" she hisses, her entire body shuddering. Her voice is pitchy, like she's trying not to cry, and you feel immediately guilty. "You're always gonna be my little sister, even if you try to embody all that is dragon-y and emotionless and scary."

You slide your hands up her arms until you find her shoulders, pulling her against you and hiding your face where your arms cross. "I'm sorry." you whisper.

Her hand goes to the back of your head. "It's alright."

"...Have you called mom?" you ask it quietly, almost afraid of the answer that she's going to give you. Until she speaks, it's a cat in a box: possibly dead, possibly alive, entirely made of tangled fur and potential claws.

She laughs and you can feel the mood of the room changing. "If you think I didn't call her the _moment_ I found out you were anywhere near a hospital, you're not as brilliant as your expensive lawyer school always said you were." she pulls back, then laughs again as she tugs your clean shirt over your head and steps back even more so that you can't hit her.

It's one of your tee shirts, something soft and made of cotton, and the comforting barrier between you and the air of the hospital makes everything better.

 

True to her word, Tanya clears the room when you get back into the presence of the most frustrating and infuriating nineteen year old that you have ever met.

Something tells you that this talk isn't going to be entirely civil.

"Your sister said that you wanted to talk to me." Vanessa starts it off, her voice nervous. "I told you that you could walk away at any time. Seriously, you can literally give up on me when you feel like you can't handle it anymore."

"I said it before, and I will keep saying it until you understand." you counter, not even thinking about it. "I'm not giving up on you."

"...You look nice in jeans and a tee." she changes the subject and you sigh.

"I was told by my sister that I needed to talk to you about my nightmares." you tell her, shrugging as you let the words fall out into the space between you. "And I think I should. Would you mind if I did?"

She shifts in the bed, the metal creaking slightly. "Go ahead."

"When I was younger, they were always about this giant green monster." you take a breath, trying to figure out how to say this to someone you've only known for about three weeks, one of which she was unconscious for. "Sometimes he would be attacking me and my friends, sometimes he would be lurking around in the background of my life and destroying everything from the edges. It's worse, sometimes, that I used to be able to see because now I have sort of...Half forgotten fragments of a life I used to know, people warped into weird faces and blobs.

"Sometimes...Sometimes people I used to know exactly what they looked like will change as they walk towards me in the dreams. They'll become monsters too, their skin will rot on their bones and their teeth will turn into fangs and then they'll turn green and become just like him and ruin absolutely everything." you stop to take a breath, not even having realized that you weren't during your recollection. There's a sound, just beyond your attention span, and when you realize what it is, you nearly punch a one armed girl in the face.

Vanessa is laughing.

"And what," you growl, realizing that this might have been a very bad idea. "Is so funny?"

Your hands are on the collar of her hospital gown, pulling her blindly up towards your face until the tip of her nose is against yours. She is still laughing, the little bitch, and there's a surge of anger in the pit of your stomach.

"It's not so much funny as it is ridiculous." she manages to say between her laughter. 

You shake her, just once, just hard enough to jostle, and she finally stops laughing. "And why is it so ridiculous?" you snarl the words. "I have had it up to my neck with you being a little shit, I am tired of you just sort of disregarding everything I have ever worked for. The first time I met you, you deemed me less important than whatever it was that you were doing when you were supposed to meet a lawyer who was going to help keep your dumb ass out of jail!"

"Wai-"

"No!" you hiss, the words rolling out of you at a pace you can't control. You know you're going to say something you'll regret but you can't make yourself care right now. "I am done waiting for you and your bullshit to catch up to how the real world works! I am your lawyer, I worked my ass off to be the only blind female lawyer that this part of the world has seen, I demand a bit more respect than you have ever given me!"

You think, at first, that you're still shaking her, but your arms are just trembling from the effort of keeping a girl who is as thin as a stick but still pretty weighty two feet off her hospital bed.

Her hand wraps around your wrist, and she mutters something, then shouts, "Terezi!"

"...What?"

That word is something familiar, something that sounds like yours, but you've never heard it before. You lower her back to the bed, the heart monitor finally catching your attention with how fast it's beeping as it tracks her heartbeat. "Your name," she gasps the words out, her hand still clutching your wrist. "Was Terezi. We played a game together and it did some kind of awful bullshit stuff to us. When the others who played it managed t-to fucking win, we got dumped into human lives that we never actually lived."

"I-" your arms go limp in her grasp, your own chest heaving as you start hyperventilating. "Vanessa?"

"It was Vriska, and you took me down when I did stupid shit, so I never saw the end of the game." she puts her palm on your chest, over your heart. "Breathe slower, okay? No need to wind up useless and unconscious on the floor." she breathes loudly, a pattern that you're supposed to follow, and you do. "As far as I can tell, it's only been five years since my death, and a year since the end of the game."

"Vriska and Terezi?" you latch onto the names, still following the breathing pattern she set out for you. 

"We were trolls, we had six letter names, every last one of us. First and last, usually following a family naming tradition thing. I'll explain that shit later because it's hard as fuck to understand and I don't think you're up to it right now." she pats your cheek gently, then once sharply. "My sister also just told me that your sister told her that your friend Samuel is a guy we used to know. As a troll, he was Sollux, the geeky little shit who made sure that our computers kept working."

"I- I remember throwing a keyboard key at his head." you mutter, frowning. "I haven't talked to him in a way I could hear his voice since before you got shot."

Now that she's told you, you remember.

It's like a door opening in your head, showing you that the memories of the life you lived as Terezi Pyrope and oh, that's why you pictured the dark haired girl with grey skin. That was her, that was Vriska. 

"You should call him, I haven't been able to track him down." she tells you, an imperious tone to her voice. 

"Oh fuck you, Serket." you say, a little unsteady as you grin weakly. You pull out your phone anyways, telling it to call Samuel. "There's no more blood caste, and I may not remember everything yet, but I'll get there eventually."

"I don't doubt it," she agrees. "You're way too stubborn to let it go."

You pause, the phone dialing in your hand. "Are you going to start that Scourge Sisters shit again?"

"No." she shoots it down, almost before you can finish saying it. 

No other explanation, just a curt dismissal of the thought. You grin at her, then lick your lips as Samuel picks up. "Hey?"

"Hey Sam-" you cut yourself off. "Hey Samuel."

"What'th up?"

"What does the name Vriska do for you?"

"...Nothing much good, actually." someone else's voice comes through the phone, distant in a way that implies they're sitting next to Samuel. There's a crackling across the speaker and then the other voice is much closer. "Sorry, had to take the phone from him, he started shaking and baring teeth at it like he wwas a cat with a trod-upon tail."

"Is there that little love for me?" Va- Vriska asks, amusement evident in her voice. 

The other side of the call is silent, and you almost regret putting it on speaker. "Vvriska?"

"Gonna guess, just from your accent and the way certain letters are coming out, that we just found a little pocket of no-longer-trolls." she answers. "Hi Eridan."

"Vvriska, wwhy are you wwith Teresa?" he replies, and you can feel a wave of annoyance. 

"How about the two of you talk on your own time?" you suggest, arching an eyebrow. "I wanted to talk to Samuel because I now remember him being Sollux, I didn't sign up for this potential Kismesis-mess bullshit."

The phone crackles again, and when it does, it's Samuel's voice coming out of the speakers. "Thorry about that," he mutters. "I jutht remember Vrithka being kind of awful."

"Hey, no worries!" she pipes up. "I'm a bitch, we all know it, just like we know that Eridan and you are assholes."

"Tho you finally remember?" he addresses you.

You hold your hand out for Vriska's, feeling a weird little thrill when her fingers tangle with yours and she kisses the knuckle of your first finger. "Yeah," you tell him, swallowing hard. "I finally do."

**Author's Note:**

> Uh...
> 
> I meant for this to be one chapter in a twelve chapter thing, but I might just be posting these pieces as their own works because this is counted as twenty-seven pages in my writing program...
> 
> Tell me what you think?


End file.
